All Party Cycling Inquiry: deadline looms

With the deadline for written submissions to the All Party Cycling Inquiry fast approaching (5th December) I’ve been working on mine.

It’s only part way there, but given people reading this might also be writing responses, I thought it might be helpful to post a draft and share my ideas and some of the sources I’ve been using. You can read the current version here. Other potentially useful sources might include the evidence submitted to the GLA investigation, much of which may be relevant to the rest of the UK.

Have you read a publication called Cycling: the way ahead for towns and cities? Although it was published in 1999, I know for certain that the EU still hold it in high regard.

I have spent a long time considering it, not least because it is the only publication to my knowledge which answers the question, How to start?

If I had to boil down their advice to the bare bones, I would say:

(i) “The essential tools are a person or a unit responsible for the pro-cycling policy, and a committee” (p.55).

(ii) “Studying the feasibility of a network is of a similar importance to setting up a cycling unit or appointing a cycling coordinator” (p.57). “Only by studying a cycle route network will it be possible to truly grasp the situation” (p.40).